“The Killing” premieres this Sunday on AMC, and this crime drama could be a serious contender at the Emmy Awards. Adapted from the Danish TV series “Forbrydelsen,” “The Killing” ties together three distinct stories around the murder of a teenage girl in Seattle: the victim’s family, the detectives assigned to the case, and the suspects.
Mireille Enos (“Big Love”) is the lead detective, her partner is Swedish actor Joel Kinnaman, Brent Sexton (“W.”) and Michelle Forbes (“Homicide: Life on the Street,” “True Blood”) are the grief-stricken parents and Golden Globe nominee Billy Campbell (“Once & Again”) is a mayoral candidate who uses the murder to his political advantage.
Creator/producer Veena Sud says she took the foundation of the original show and created something new by addressing cultural differences. “There were so many character things we had to change in order to make this story compelling to an American audience,” she told Gold Derby in the audio podcast below.
For Sud, “The turning point for this show, and really so much of the success of this show, depended on finding the perfect actress to portray the lead character Sarah Linden. We were getting big-name actresses sending in tapes and coming in to read and so many actresses were excited about this role and we were down to the wire.”
Sud is full of praise for her leading lady, revealing that after Enos began reading her lines, “There was literally this moment where I could see her standing in that green field in the pilot and I could literally see her eyes and her hair and her skin against that sky and I looked at Patty (Jenkins, the director of the pilot) and we said, ‘We’ve found her.'”
Listen to the full interview by clicking on the right-pointing arrow below.
Photo: “The Killing” (AMC)
